One of California's most scenic underground attractions reopens after 4-year closure

The Marble Room inside Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park, Calif. (Sam Mauhay-Moore, SFGATE)

It hits you right when you need it, at the the bottom of a sweltering canyon deep in Sequoia National Park: a blast of cold air, like your midhike daydreams of sweet air conditioning came to life and materialized straight from the mountains themselves. Nearby, behind a wrought-iron gate shaped like a massive spiderweb, is the sprawling cave system you made the trek down that canyon for, newly reopened after floods and wildfires left it unreachable for over four years. 

That gust of cool air is what led two National Park Service employees to stumble upon Crystal Cave while fishing at a nearby creek in 1918, park naturalist Drew Gallant said to our tour group as we stood at the cave's mouth on a hot afternoon last week. Originally named Patawin Cave, it had already been used as a sacred ceremonial ground by the Yokut people for thousands of years, but the two employees were the first settlers to come across its secluded, rocky entrance. 

In true settler fashion, park Superintendent Walter Fry began developing the cave soon after his staff became aware of its existence, and it officially opened to the public in 1940. It remains the only cave out of hundreds within the park to be open to the public, accessible exclusively via tours led by the Sequoia National Park Conservancy. Located 10.5 miles from the park's famous General Sherman tree, the entrance to the cave is about a two-hour drive from the Central Valley city of Visalia.

The conservancy began offering tours of Crystal Cave this season for the first time since 2021. The cave closed that year after the road leading to it was nearly decimated, first by the KNP Complex Fire, then by storms that pummeled California over the next two winters. Driving the winding route to the trailhead above the cave, I passed the charred remains of pines, oaks and dogwoods that were scorched by the fire, along with an array of fire-following plants and wildflowers sprouting from bright green chaparral. 

"Park crews had to come out and clear 4,000 downed trees from the road, then fill in the road itself," Gallant said. "A lot had to happen for the cave to reopen for the season." 

The trail at the entrance of Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park, Calif. (Sam Mauhay-Moore, SFGATE)

Past the spiderweb gate at the cave's mouth, a trail lined with small boulders leads you deep into a cavern draped with stalactites, hanging formations crafted over thousands of years by the slow dripping of mineral-rich water. Some hang straight down, while others fan out into what looks like flowing marble fabric from a Baroque-era sculpture. (Gallant calls it "cave bacon.") If you look closely, you'll see parts of the marble sparkle under the warm light of several hidden lanterns: the feature that landed Crystal Cave its post-colonial name. 

I don't know what sounds I expected to hear inside the cave - maybe fluttering bat wings or the distant howling of an ancient earthen spirit trapped inside the mountain. Certainly not the sound of flowing water, which is what greeted us as we made our way farther down the trail. Turns out there are snowmelt-fed underground streams that flow through the cave and drain into the Kaweah River system, eventually feeding Lake Kaweah, where I'd gone for a midday swim prior to the cave tour. Inside the chilled, dark cavern, it was hard to imagine myself jumping into this same water in the sunbaked Tulare County foothills a few hours earlier.

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Past the stream, the trail led us to the Organ Room, named after the long stalactites forming a shape like - you guessed it! - a massive pipe organ. It's here that Gallant told us about the damage incurred by the cave since the public began venturing inside it, pointing out spots where marble formations were broken off or damaged by visitors. The cave was originally much sparklier, he added, before dirt tracked in on people's shoes permanently muddied the shimmering calcite. The park and conservancy have since taken extra measures to make sure the cave isn't damaged further, including limiting tour groups to 35 (hundreds of people at a time used to be allowed inside, Gallant said) and adding extra barriers so visitors don't wander off-trail. 

"That's allowed us to preserve the beautiful, awesome geological formations that the cave protects, and make sure that the cave can be enjoyed by future generations," Gallant said. 

Nothing - except maybe rewatching "The Phantom of the Opera" - could have prepared me for the Marble Room, an auditorium-sized hall made of an assortment of marble formations hanging from high alcoves, hidden chambers and secret passageways as far as the eye can see. Gallant told us about Fry's history as a logger of giant sequoia trees, and I sat on a boulder imagining myself being whisked by boat into the Phantom's lair as a haunting aria echoes off the candlelit cave walls. Then Gallant announced that our tour was ending, and I (reluctantly) snapped out of it. 

Inside Crystal Cave in Sequoia National Park, Calif. (Sam Mauhay-Moore, SFGATE)

Gallant said that tour slots have been consistently filling up since the cave reopened this summer, and funds from ticket sales go back to protecting the cave and ensuring that it can stay open. Currently at $20 for an adult and $10 for a child, ticket sales were also used to help rebuild the road to the cave prior to its reopening. 

"My favorite part about leading tours through the cave is just seeing the people's eyes light up as they're seeing the cool geological formations that the cave has," Gallant said. 

The worst part about visiting Crystal Cave is probably the hike back up to the parking area, but thankfully, you have the entire hourlong tour through the cave to mentally prepare yourself for it. Bring water, a light jacket and a sense of awe, and you'll be glad you took a trip beyond the spiderweb.

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